In the first study of First Ypres for almost 40 years, Ian Beckett draws on a wide range of sources never previously used to reappraise the conduct of the battle, its significance and its legacy. The battle for Ypres in October and November 1914 represented the last opportunity for open, mobile warfare on the Western Front for the next four years. It marked the transition between war as it had been and war as it would become. The first battle to associate the British army with the ‘immortal salient’ and, indeed, regarded as the end of the ‘old army’, the mythologizing of the British struggle has obscured the major role of the French and Belgians in defending Flanders. But it has also been mythologised from the German perspective, the so-called kindermord (slaughter of the innocents) proving a useable myth for the Nazis through the participation of the young Adolf Hitler.  Ideal for readers interested in the Firt World War.